The Scholar

by Dervla McTiernan

  Read on for an exclusive preview

  of Cormac Reilly’s next compelling

  case, to be released in 2020

  CHAPTER ONE

  Peter Fisher was woken by movement in his bed. The room was bright – his thin curtains were no match for the morning sun. He blinked against the light, tasted the sourness of the last night’s beer on his tongue. More movement. He turned in time to see a woman’s dark head disappear under the covers. He lifted them, looked down at her.

  ‘What are you doing?’ His voice was on the rough side. He cleared his throat.

  She stilled. ‘Looking for my knickers.’ A laugh in her voice.

  He thought. ‘I think they’re on the floor on your side.’

  She reappeared out from under the blankets, looked at him. ‘Right. Close your eyes so.’

  Peter dropped his head back on his pillow, closed his eyes, and took a moment to replay the previous night’s activities. When he opened them again she was standing at the end of the bed. Her knickers were white cotton, her bra black lace. Christ but she was in great shape.

  ‘Sneaking out, were you?’

  She was pulling on her jeans now, searching for her T-shirt.

  ‘I’ve got training,’ she said. ‘And I’m late, late, late.’

  Training. She played for the Salthill camogie team. They had a semi-final coming up. Which was why she hadn’t been drinking the night before, and he had.

  Peter let out a heavy sigh. ‘I knew if I let you take advantage of me you wouldn’t respect me in the morning.’

  She grinned at him, pulled her T-shirt over her head and looked around for her boots.

  ‘You’re a hard woman,’ Peter said.

  She sat on the end of the bed, started to lace up her boots, gave him a sideways look. ‘I’d say you’ll recover,’ she said.

  She was ferociously cute. Even first thing in the morning. He wanted to pull her back into bed and kiss her, but had better keep his distance until he found toothpaste and half a gallon of mouthwash. She might have had the same concerns. She came close to say goodbye, kissed him briefly on the cheek, then headed for the door.

  ‘I’ll see ya,’ she said.

  ‘Hey, Orla,’ he said. She turned. ‘D’you want to meet for lunch?’

  She looked surprised. ‘I’m meeting my sister,’ she said. ‘But … maybe later?’

  He nodded. ‘I’ll give you a shout so.’

  One last smile, warmer this time, and she was gone.

  Peter considered going in search of water, thought better of it, rolled over, and went back to sleep. It was eleven when he woke for a second time. This time he made straight for the shower and his toothbrush, came back to his room to dress and straighten the bedclothes. He opened the window to let out the stale air of the night before and cold, fresh November air streamed in. It was a bright, sunny day, but there wasn’t much warmth in the winter sun. He made for the kitchen. The apartment was a two-bedroom, on the second floor of a three-storey building on St Mary’s Road. His roommate, Aoife, had found the place for them, had actually signed for it and paid the deposit before he’d even seen it. Which was just as well – you had to move fast to find someplace that was both decent and affordable in Galway. In his price bracket there was a lot of competition from students. Aoife could have afforded better, but they liked to live together, and she never made a thing out of it. Besides, it was two minutes’ walk from the hospital, which worked well for her, though it was almost as handy for the station.

  Aoife was already occupying the couch in the living room. She was wearing long pyjamas bottoms, a jumper, and thick socks, had the Saturday papers with their glossy magazine supplements spread all around her, and an empty coffee cup on the small table to her right. She raised bright eyes to him.

  ‘You’ve emerged,’ she said.

  Peter went into the little kitchen and poured a glass of water, came back to the living room and drank it down.

  ‘That bad, is it?’ Aoife asked.

  Peter shook his head. ‘I’m grand,’ he said.

  ‘Did I hear lovely Orla commence the walk of shame a few hours ago? Did you kick her out?’

  Peter laughed, dropped into the armchair. He felt buoyant. First day off in two weeks, and so far it was pretty close to perfect. ‘She had training. We’re meeting for dinner.’

  Aoife raised an eyebrow. ‘Jesus. Commitment,’ she said.

  Peter shrugged. He liked Orla. Aoife did too – she’d introduced them, on some doctors’ night out. Orla wasn’t a doctor like Aoife, she was a med lab scientist, ran blood tests in the hospital labs, but she knew Aoife from the social scene. He’d kissed her that first night, if he remembered correctly. Then again another night, or was it two? Last night they’d taken it further. He did like her. She was bright, funny. She always seemed happy too, and that was nice to be around, when so much of his work meant being knee-deep in human misery.

  ‘No work today?’ Aoife asked, reading his mind.

  He looked at his phone. ‘Not so far, anyway.’ First day off in two weeks, but that didn’t mean he’d get to keep it.

  Aoife stretched, knocked half the papers onto the ground in the process. ‘Any plans?’

  ‘Haven’t thought about it.’ He should go to the gym, or for a run at least. He had the annual physical coming up. He looked down at his stomach, thought about shuttle runs and the previous night’s beers. ‘Do you want to go to the cinema?’ There was a new Bond movie – Spectre. He’d heard good things about it.

  Aoife looked wary. ‘Maybe,’ she said. ‘What were you thinking?’

  Peter’s phone rang before he could answer. Aoife rolled her eyes, let out a sigh of exasperation.

  Peter checked his screen before answering. It was a blocked number, probably the station. He pressed the button.

  ‘Fisher.’

  ‘Reilly wants to know if you can come in.’ A familiar voice. It was Ceri Russell. A colleague.

  Peter looked at his watch. ‘I’m off today,’ he said, unnecessarily.

  ‘He knows,’ she said. ‘But the taskforce is out again tonight and they’ve taken four extra uniforms. Reilly says we need someone for the station.’

  ‘Who else is in?’ Peter asked. He locked eyes with Aoife, who stood and started to gather up her newspapers. Peter stayed where he was, listening to Ceri talk, not yet willing to accept that his day off had just been cancelled.

  ‘Basically me, Reilly and Mulcair,’ Ceri was saying. ‘The entire taskforce is out on the raid – they left hours ago. They think there’s stuff coming in by boat this evening.’

  Peter stood up, looked out of the window. ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘It’s mad how they always get a tip-off when it’s a sunny day, isn’t it?’

  Ceri paused. ‘They seemed sure this time,’ she said.

  Peter snorted. ‘I’ll be there in a half-hour,’ he said. Felt her hesitate. ‘What?’

  ‘Can you stop off and make a call on the way in? It’s Reilly who’s asking, not me,’ she added hurriedly. ‘A call came in on 999. A twelve-year-old boy in Knocknacarra. He says he saw a girl his age abducted from in front of his house, about fifteen minutes ago.’ Ceri’s tone wasn’t right for the news she was delivering. There was tension in her voice, maybe, but it was minor, office politics grade, not a voice that suggested a major operation about to kick off.

  ‘All right,’ Peter said. ‘What are you leaving out?’ He went to the kitchenette. Leaned against the wall. Aoife was pouring cornflakes into a bowl. He mouthed a sorry in her direction – she responded with a grimace. Peter went into his bedroom, phone still pressed to his ear and shut the door.

  ‘Well, he says he saw Slender Man do it.’

  Peter paused in the act of pushing off his shoes. He’d need to change out of his jeans if he was going to the station. ‘What?’

  ‘You know, the internet thing. Slender Man,’ Ceri was saying. ‘Look, I didn’t talk to him myself, so …’

  ‘Right. So it’s a p
rank or a crank.’ He looked at his watch. It was early enough that the traffic to Knocknacarra wouldn’t be too bad. He didn’t want to sit in the car for two hours on a prank call. ‘Anything else?’

  ‘His name’s Fred Savage. Address is Number One, The Rise,’ Ceri said in a rush, maybe relieved he wasn’t making a big deal out of it.

  They hung up, and Peter started to strip off his jeans and T-shirt. At least he didn’t have to go looking for a uniform. He was plain clothes now, ever since he’d made the move to the detective squad. The dress code of a detective depended on the nature of the work, but for a standard day he tried for respectability. That meant slacks rather than jeans, and a T-shirt with a collar on it.

  He wouldn’t admit it to anyone, but despite the fact that his day off had gone down the drain, and there was a good chance he wouldn’t now get to meet Orla for the promised dinner, he still felt a flicker of pleasure as he made his way to his car. He loved his job, liked that he was relied on. DS Reilly trusted him, and that proved he was getting somewhere. Maybe he was closer to making sergeant than he thought.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Peter didn’t bother with lights or siren, other than giving them a brief flick when he got to the top of Threadneedle Road. He was in no great hurry to get in to the station, where he would likely spend the day glued to a chair, dealing with stacks of paperwork and making overdue calls. They were so short staffed that keeping the basics covered was all they could aim for and it usually took a major incident to get a trip to a scene OK’d. This call out to Knocknacarra was a reprieve – he should take his time on the drive out and back. He wondered if the dispatcher had asked to speak to Fred’s parents. The Slender Man reference and the kid’s name – Fred Savage sounded like a makey-uppy – had to have had her thinking she was dealing with a crank.

  Fifteen minutes later Fisher pulled in outside of a mock-Tudor semi-detached. The house was painted a brisk white. A flowerbed planted with clashing orange and pink flowers formed a border around a square of well-maintained lawn. All of the houses on the street were identical, though some were better maintained than others. The Rise was not a particularly apt name for the little cul-de-sac, which had no hill at all, and no view.

  The front door of number one opened before he could ring the bell, and a middle-aged woman looked at him anxiously, taking in the marked car behind him. Fisher reached for his badge, introduced himself. ‘I’m looking for a Fred Savage,’ he said. The woman nodded a yes and gestured impatiently for him to come inside.

  ‘He’s upstairs. I made him get into bed. Look, he’s not very well. You’ll go easy on him, won’t you?’ She led the way up narrow, carpeted stairs. The house smelled of chicken soup and baking.

  ‘Fred is your son, Mrs …?’ She obviously knew why he was there, knew that her son had called the police.

  ‘It’s Angela,’ she said. She reached the landing and opened a door into a small box room, very tidily arranged, furnished with a single bed made up with crisp white linen and occupied by a boy, small for twelve, who had a tablet clutched in one hand, and wearing a pair of Harry Potter style glasses pushed back on his nose. He looked hot, unwell.

  ‘Fred?’ Fisher asked.

  The boy nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said, his voice not much more than a whisper. He coughed.

  ‘You’ve been sick, Fred?’

  A shrug. ‘First bronchitis, then tonsillitis, now bronchitis again. No school for two weeks. Mum’s had to stay home from work to mind me.’ The boy managed to look pleased and worried at the same time.

  ‘All right,’ Fisher said. ‘Look, Fred, you know I’m here because you called 999, and told the dispatcher that you’d witnessed an abduction.’

  A vigorous nod, no signs of embarrassment. Fisher felt the first stirrings of worry in his gut.

  ‘You told the dispatcher that you saw Slender Man abduct a girl. Is that right?’

  Confusion passed over Fred’s small face. ‘I didn’t say that,’ he said. For the first time his eyes went to his mother’s face, but it wasn’t the worried glance of a little boy caught out in a lie.

  ‘You didn’t say anything about Slender Man?’ Fisher asked. ‘Do you know what Slender Man is?’ If the boy denied it Fisher didn’t relish the task of explaining. His own knowledge was limited to what he’d picked up from a few newspaper reports about a stabbing in North America. Slender Man was a sort-of digital urban legend, as best as he’d been able to make out. Something born in a photoshop challenge run on a message board that morphed into an entire mythology, given fresh impetus when two teenage girls stabbed a third to within brink of death, then claimed they’d been forced to the deed by Slender Man.

  But Fred was nodding. He half-lifted his tablet toward Fisher. ‘I was playing Slender Man’s Forest,’ he said. ‘The app. That’s what I told the dispatcher. I was playing the app before I looked out the window and saw what happened.’

  Oh Christ. ‘And what did you see, Fred? Tell me exactly.’ Fisher kept his voice very calm. He could almost feel the thrum of Angela’s anxiety from the doorway behind him.

  Fred glanced towards the window. ‘I saw a girl, walking her dog. Then a car came and parked a bit down the street.’ Fred made a vague gesture towards the window. He was really struggling to get the words out, his voice a rasping whisper. ‘A man got out and walked towards her. I didn’t really pay attention to him. I thought he was going to go into Murphy’s house next door. But then …’ Fred aimed another glance at his mum. This one had some fear in it, asked for reassurance.

  ‘It’s all right, Fred,’ Angela said from behind Fisher. ‘I’m here, and the garda is here, and nothing’s going to happen to you.’

  Fred shook his head before he spoke again, and Fisher formed the distinct impression that the boy wasn’t worried for himself.

  ‘He punched her in the stomach. Really, really hard. She fell down and let her dog’s lead go. The dog just yapped and yapped until the man kicked it. Then he picked the girl up from the ground, and he put her into the boot of his car, and he drove away. The dog ran after the car. I don’t know where it is now.’ Fred sat back on his pillow, gasped in a deep breath.

  There was absolutely no doubt in Fisher’s mind that the boy was telling the truth. The dispatcher had screwed up, she’d mis-heard the boy, which, given the state of his voice, might be understandable. Why the hell had his mother let him make the call himself? Fisher cringed inwardly at the thought of his leisurely drive in the sunshine. How much time had passed since the call came through? At least half an hour.

  ‘What kind of car was the man driving?’ Fisher asked.

  A shrug. ‘I don’t really know cars,’ Fred said. His voice broke on the last word and he coughed, a nasty-sounding rattle. He pushed his tablet across the bed towards Fisher. ‘It was black,’ he said. He gestured at the tablet.

  Fisher felt the blood quicken in his veins. ‘Did you get a picture?’ he asked.

  Fred seemed to feel the futility of trying to speak. He woke the screen of his tablet, tapped on an app, tapped again, and turned the screen to face Fisher. Fisher watched as a short video played out and looped. Fred had taken it from his bedroom window. The glass through which he’d shot the video was grubby and the video itself was innocuous enough. It showed a black Ford Mondeo, parked about five metres down the street, pulling away from the curb and driving off. Peter couldn’t make out anything of the driver but he could make out part at least of the registration.

  Peter looked at Fred, and two very serious, red-rimmed blue eyes looked back at him. Fred mouthed one word. Sorry.

  Peter stood. ‘You did brilliantly, all right? And don’t worry, we’re going to find her.’ The boy held the tablet out to him, and he took it. ‘I’ll get this back to you as soon as I can,’ he said, and was met with a shrug.

  ‘Did you know the girl?’ Fisher asked. ‘Did you recognise her, or the man?’

  A shake of the head. No.

  ‘Could you describe the man to me, Fred?’
/>
  In his rasping whisper, every second word lost, Fred described the man as tall and thin, dark hair, a beard. He was wearing slacks, Fred thought, and a navy T-shirt with a collar, just like his dad wore sometimes. Fred looked sick at the thought.

  Peter turned to Angela, gave her the nod, and she followed him out to the landing.

  ‘What was all that about a slender man?’ she asked, her voice anxious.

  ‘Just a misunderstanding,’ Fisher said. ‘The dispatcher couldn’t quite make out what Fred was saying …’

  ‘He called you lot before he even told me what had happened. Then he came and found me in the kitchen, bawling his eyes out. Poor kid. He’s a really good boy, you know? A really good boy.’ She hesitated. ‘Don’t go getting any crazy ideas about his dad either, right? It wasn’t him. Fred’s dad lives in London, he’s blond, and only a few inches taller than I am.’

  ‘All right,’ Fisher said. ‘Can you give me a minute?’

  He stood outside and dialled Cormac Reilly directly on his mobile.

  ‘Reilly.’

  ‘It’s Fisher. I’m in Knocknacarra. I responded to that call.’ Peter wanted to sound cool, professional, in control but he could hear the fear and excitement in his voice. He took a breath, turning his face from the phone.

  ‘Okay.’ Reilly sounded distracted.

  ‘Uh … the reported abduction,’ Peter said. ‘A young boy – Fred Savage – called it in. He spoke to control in Dublin and there was a mix-up. Some confusion. His call wasn’t taken seriously but I think this is the real deal. He has video of the car driving away. I’ve got his tablet here with the recording on it. The recording isn’t perfect but I can read a partial.’

  ‘Give it to me.’

  Quickly, Peter ran Reilly through everything he knew. His report was briefly interrupted when Reilly took a few seconds to pass on the partial plate and to issue instructions to the officers in the case room.

  ‘I’m on the way,’ Reilly said, and Peter could hear voices in the background, movement, a car door slamming. ‘They’re working on the partial but see if you can email the video directly to tech. If you get that done, start on the door to door. We’ll be with you in twenty minutes.’